


a soft epilogue

by blazeofglory



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Let Jack Zimmermann Be Happy 2k16, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Jackparse and past Zimbits, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8777743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: It starts their freshman year, with a party and a blunt and their eyes meeting across the room like something out of a movie. When they meet in the middle, though, it’s clear that their story is not a love story. Or: the endgame Jack/Shitty ficlet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [familiar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/familiar/gifts).



> I think we deserve
> 
> a soft epilogue, my love.
> 
> We are good people
> 
> and we’ve suffered enough.
> 
> \--Seventy Years of Sleep # 4. nikka ursula

Shitty is a constant. It’s funny, in a way, because Jack’s life has always been in flux. He’s never stayed in one place, he’s never had friendships that lasted more than a few years. He started billeting when he was 15, and his life has felt transient ever since.

For a few blurry years, there had been hockey and pills and Kent Parson. The thought of _forever_ had seemed unrealistic; unfathomable. In all honesty, Jack had sort of thought that he wouldn’t live past 25. 

On his worse days, he still thinks he might’ve been better off dying young.

Jack is 26 now.

Samwell happened and he got _better_. He had Shitty by his side, then Lardo, and eventually the whole team. He had Bitty.

Jack had found a home in Bitty. A tiny, soft home—one with cuddles and pies and sweet smiles every day.

Like every other home, Jack had to leave it eventually.

Bitty goes. Kent is long gone. 

Through everything, Shitty stays.

 

-

 

It starts their freshman year, with a party and a blunt and their eyes meeting across the room like something out of a movie. When they meet in the middle, though, it’s clear that their story is not a love story.

“You’re on the hockey team, right?” Jack asks, nervous and awkward as ever. He doesn’t know why he’s at this stupid party at all. His roommate had invited him, but now his roommate is nowhere to be seen.

The boy with the ridiculous mustache smiles.

“Yeah, man,” he answers, easy as anything. “I’m Shitty, I don’t think we’ve met yet.”

Jack snorts a quiet laugh, because—hockey nicknames. He smiles too. “I’m Jack.”

Shitty claps him on the shoulder and asks him if he wants to go outside and smoke. Jack declines, until he realizes that Shitty means a joint, not a cigarette.

They go outside. They smoke. Shitty leans against Jack, heavy and sleepy, and the party feels very far away. 

Jack starts to think that Samwell might not be so bad.

 

-

 

It becomes a thing they do sometimes. They hang out, after class and every weekend, alternating whose dorm they go to. Sometimes they smoke, but mostly they just hang out. Shitty is a little younger than Jack, but then again, so are all the other freshman. They have nothing in common, either, other than hockey.

They work, though, is the thing.

Jack listens to Shitty rant about the patriarchy, frequently and _loudly_. Shitty listens when Jack opens about his anxiety, rarely and barely above a whisper.

One night, they’re hanging out, and it’s _late_. It’s finals week, though, so the library is still ¾ full, and they’re far from alone. They’ve got a little study carrel to themselves, though, and that’s enough. 

Jack looks up from his stack of flashcards, trying in vain to rub his eyes hard enough so the words stop being blurry. He looks over at Shitty, who’s still hunched over a textbook, chewing away on a disgusting old highlighter that Jack’s pretty sure he found on the floor a few weeks ago. Jack doesn’t think much before saying, way too loud in the quiet room, “I’m gay.”

Shitty’s head snaps up immediately, a wide grin under his wild mustache. He closes his book and offers his outstretched fist to Jack. “ _Nice_ , man. Bump it.” 

Jack laughs quietly and does.

“I don’t know what I am,” Shitty says honestly a second later, still smiling. Jack blushes, but he doesn’t really know why.

“You’ve got time to figure it out,” Jack replies, smiling again. Shitty just nods, his face pensive for once.

Jack returns to his studying. A few more minutes pass before Shitty does too.

 

-

 

They don’t really talk about it for a while. Kent comes to Samwell, Cup in hand, then leaves again. Jack knows Shitty must’ve guessed what happened there, but Shitty doesn’t say anything about, and Jack is incredibly grateful for that.

[Incoming 1:15am] JACK. JACKY BOY ARE YOU STILL UP

[Outgoing 1:17am] I’m up now

[Incoming 1:18] YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED

[Outgoing 1:18] I doubt that

[Incoming 1:20] Brooooooo I just sucked a duck

[Incoming 1:20] *dick

[Incoming 1:20] AND I LIKED IT

[Outgoing 1:21] Congratulations. can I go back to bed now 

[Incoming 1:21] BRO be more excited for me!!!!! I’m #confirmed pan

[Outgoing 1:23] why did you hashtag it?

 

-

 

Shitty dates boys. And girls. And several gender nonconforming people. None of them last.

Jack dates Bitty, but it doesn’t last either.

They graduate. Shitty goes to law school; Jack goes to the NHL.

They’re Skyping one day, a weekly tradition, when Jack stops putting up the pretense of not being lonely.

He’s sitting up in bed, propped up against the wall with his laptop in his lap, and he sighs heavily.

“What’s up?” Shitty asks. The connection is poor and his face is blurry, but Jack can hear him just fine. Shitty’s been concerned about him ever since Bitty left, and Jack can hear it in his voice now.

 _I’m fine_ is on the tip of his tongue, but it’s not what comes out when he opens his mouth.

“My apartment is so empty,” he says instead.

On screen, Shitty is a blur of hair and mustache—Jack thinks he can see a frown, though.

Jack looks away, biting at his lip. It’s uncharacteristic of Shitty to not say anything; Jack forges on anyway.

“Maybe, just—maybe you can come visit again soon?” he asks, not looking at his screen. “It’s been a while, man.”

“ _Jack_ ,” Shitty says loudly, making Jack look back at the computer. The wifi must’ve gotten its shit together, because the image is clear now. Jack can see every detail of Shitty, sitting shirtless at his kitchen table, long hair a mess and a stray crumb in his mustache. College seems so long ago—Jack misses, suddenly and viscerally, living with his best friend. “I didn’t tell you where my job interview next week is, did I?”

Jack raises a brow. “No?”

Shitty grins, and it’s as infectious as ever. Jack knows his answer before he says anything at all.

Long after they hang up, the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest lingers.

 

-

 

When Shitty moves in, he spends the first night in Jack’s bed.

“I miss cuddling,” Shitty whines, doing those ridiculous puppy eyes, so Jack obliges.

When Jack wakes up in the morning, Shitty is spooning him, his body warm and strong against Jack’s.

Jack’s head is quiet in a way that it rarely is. When he was 17, he’d taken pill after pill in search of the quiet. Sometimes, high out of his mind and kissing Kent, he could grasp the edges of the quiet, but it had always been fleeting.

With Bitty, they’d had these quiet mornings too. They’d had breakfast in bed and sweet morning sex, and Jack’s mind had stayed so blissfully silent. But then they would wake up, and Jack would be on edge again, just waiting for himself to ruin everything. And, eventually, he did.

Jack hadn’t realized until just now, laying in bed with his favorite person in the world, that his brain has always been quiet with Shitty. Every long night spent staying up talking, every conversation, every hug, every Skype chat, the only anxiety Jack had ever felt was from outside forces. Never had he worried if Shitty would hate him, or leave him, or never love him back.

Shitty doesn’t hate him. Shitty won’t leave him. And Shitty loves him back. These are facts that have never been up for debate.

Even this sudden realization doesn’t make Jack’s chest feel tight. The gentle quiet persists.

Slowly, the sun rises.

Shitty wakes eventually. He rolls onto his back and smiles at Jack, sleepy and unselfconscious. Jack smiles back at him.

There’s not a single worry in Jack’s mind when he leans in and kisses Shitty full on the mouth.

Shitty doesn’t hesitate before kissing him back; Jack can feel his smile persisting long into it.

Maybe their story is a love story after all.


End file.
